It is known that production of artifacts in footwear and leather goods sectors generally involves, among other preliminary operations, the cutting of the leather that forms the raw material. The artifact, for instance a shoe, is made up by several parts specifically shaped, that are obtained from the leather by means of individual cutting operations. These steps may be carried out by means of hollow punching apparatuses called punchers, or with machines that operate by means of water jets. The known water jet cutting machines are provided with a wide working bench on which lies the leather or hide or possibly synthetic material from which the different shaped parts are obtained. The water jet, coming out at a very high pressure from a small hole of a nozzle connected with a mobile frame located above the working bench relatively to which it is automatically moved, cuts and goes through the leather, obtaining the shaped part. Under the working bench there is formed a water collecting and conveying basin. The working bench or resting top for the leather must be obviously permeable, while showing at the same time sufficient strength characteristics to bear the leather without flexures. The known art conventionally uses for this purpose wire nets or the like, suitably sized meshes of which give rise all the same to a severe drawback. In fact, water, expelled at high pressure from the hole finds a barrier to its flowing in the underlying basin in correspondence of the individual meshes of the net defined by wire or metal straps and unavoidably reverberates and nebulizes. As a consequence, the leather tends to absorb a part of water, especially along the cut edges. To reduce this drawback, there is located on the working benches of said machines, above the wire net, a layer of absorbing material, formed, for instance, by a rubber plate on which the leather is placed. These plates are cut into many shaped parts, as it happens for the overlying leather, and therefore they must be replaced frequently, causing higher production costs. However, the presence of an absorbent layer of this kind is not a final solution to the problem, as leather wets--even though to a limited extent--and the possible traces that remain on the same after drying affect the quality of the artifacts adversely.